Summary Of Transitional Tortillas By Carolina Munoz

The book Transitional Tortillas by Carolina Bank Muñoz, sheds light on the issue of the mistreatment of workers in tortilla factories. By comparing the working conditions in two factories, the author is able to gain insight into the personal lives of various workers. As the story unfolds, the unfair treatment of workers is revealed and the need for the world to know about these situations becomes obvious.

In Transitional Tortillas, Carolina Bank Muñoz explores the lives and relationships found in two tortilla factories. Although the two factories are owned by the same company, Tortimundo, one of which is located in the Hacienda, California, while the other is located in Hacienda, Mexico. The factory located in the United States, which

By comparing the two factories to one another, the author is able to highlight the lives of the factory workers. The reader is able to gain insight into how the country, state policies, and labor market conditions affect the factories as a whole. As the author digs deeper into the factories separately, the individual lives of the workers are revealed and explored. The reader has the opportunity to see how race, gender, and class affect both working conditions and employees alike. Another strength of the book is the balanced view the author gives through her assessment of the four different workers. The workers stories are well researched and an influential eye opener to the conditions and situations that these workers face every day of their lives. A weakness of the book, however, is the opinionated view of the United States government. Muñoz seems to come off as believing that the only reason these people are in such poverty is because of the policies enforced by the US government. The author only momentarily touches on how the Mexican government also severely affects the people and the working conditions they face. While the United States does in fact contribute to the problems these people are experiencing, more could be said about the nature of the Mexican government as well.

This book is in fact a good contribution

The topic of working conditions in tortilla factories was a topic of conversation and we even had a reading on the same subject. In the class lecture on immigration, we discussed how “immigrants can be controlled by threatening to report them to immigration officials, which can result in deportation” (Class notes, 10/06/2014). This problem can be seen in the book, especially in the case of the undocumented immigrant Jose. He is forced to take the most undesirable shift at the factory because his managers hang his illegal immigration status over his head. “Managers constantly remind him that they have taken a risk in hiring him and that they cannot adequately protect him unless he works the night shift” (pg. 2). Jose is afraid of being deported and therefore will not stand up for himself in such an unjust situation. He is not paid the same as people doing the same work as him, he does not receive raises in his salary, he is not promoted, and he is denied shift changes. “He is treated like a second-class citizen in the workplace” (pg. 2). Unfortunately, none of this will ever change for Jose because of his immigration status and the power that gives his employers. Undocumented immigrants across the country are treated unfairly by their employers purely because of their lack of citizenship. Employers are essentially